Do you like smoke deflectors?

[Flintlock76]

daveklepper

But that Glenn Miller version is truly a masterpiece.  I'm sure to have repeat hearings-viewings again and again.  You really made my day!

You're very welcome David!  Your posts over the years have been so informative it was a pleasure to return the favor in some small way! 

And honestly, I don't see how we could have won the war without swing music, it was probably just as powerful a weapon in it's own right as an M-1 Garand, a Sherman tank or a P-51 Mustang.

RIP Major Glenn Miller, USAAF.  What a loss.  

[Deggesty]

daveklepper

Flintlock, Chattanooga Choochoo is truly one of my very favorite songs.  I've sung it for my fellow Yeshiva students on several occasions (July 4th being typical).  Of course I replace "ham-an'-eggs" with "eggs-an'-gritts to calm some sensibilities. and occasionally track 29 gets replaced with track Number 9. since 29 was strictly an LIRR track, but otherwise all words preserved.   Cannot do anything about rerouting the train via Carolina.  Guess that route would have taken it throuigh Atlanta and even possibly Birmingham before turning north.

But that Glenn Miller version is truly a masterpiece.  I'm sure to have repeat hearings-viewings again and again.  You really made my day!

 

"Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the mornin'..."

Dave, such would have been possible by going west from Salisbury through Asheville and over to Morristown and then down to Knoxville and Chattanooga. Going this way would have made it possible, as was seen in the movie, to cross into Tennessee in open country. Had the train followed the established route to Chattanooga, it would have crossed into Tennessee in downtown Bristol.

However, songwriters take license. 

[54light15]

As I have learned, there has never been a train that left Pennsylvania station at 3:45 to Chattanooga. But that's fine. Great music and that's a fact! 

But is that really Glen Miller in that film? He sure does look like Brigadier General Stewart, USAF. I mention that because I used to work with a guy who was inspected by General Stewart in Viet Nam when he was a sergeant in the air force. Talk about second-hand bragging!  

[MMLDelete]

This morphed from smoke deflectors to music.

It's only a matter of time until we get to classic warplanes strafing concerts.

 

[daveklepper]

Be glad to comromise:  With the PRR (and I love their power anyway, including K4s) having possibly the least musical steam locomotive whistles, which railroad had the most musical?

[Flintlock76]

54light15

But is that really Glen Miller in that film?

Yep, that really is him!  Makes me thank God for film and all the effort that people put into it, both the photography and sound recording.  Thanks to them we've got a permanent record of the Glenn Miller Orchestra at the height of its powers. 

Not all agree, but among most swing music fans it's the general opinion that of all the "Big Bands" Glenn Miller's was the best.

An interesting fact, once the initial development work was done by the record industry, after 1927 all the major advances in sound recording came from Hollywood, and not the record business.  Isn't that something?

[Flintlock76]

daveklepper

Be glad to comromise:  With the PRR (and I love their power anyway, including K4s) having possibly the least musical steam locomotive whistles, which railroad had the most musical?

 

I think all had their good ones and not-so-good ones, but my personal favorite is the "steamboat" whistle on the Norfolk & Western Class J's. 

However, some old-timers here in Virginia say the single-note "hooter" whistle on N&W's  Class A's and Y's had a particular haunting quality all its own, especially at night when the sound echoed through a snow-covered countryside.

[daveklepper]

I agree completely. and it compliments my thinking of the N&W J as truly the greatest all-time locomotive.  But if my memory is correct regarding sound, IC Mountains, as heard on Iowa freights, were very close in sound.  Just beautiful.

[daveklepper]

The money came from Holywood up to agout 1960.  The work, however, was done at Bell Labs, AT&T in genral, and its manufacturing arm, Western Electric. Exponential horn drivers, compression drivers, large bass horn enclosures with 15 and 18-inch "woofers," all these came from AT&T and its subsidiaries.  After 1960, with its development of the transistor, the switch to digital sound was actually started in France as early as 1938 with "Pulse-code Modulation" as an alternative to Amplitude Modulation and Frequency Modulation.  In 1955, Bell Labs began working on digital audio to increase capacity of radio and wire links.  Frequency modulation already increased the capacity of a single link to well over a hundred messages, but ditital could raise it to ten thousand.

In 1960 Bell Labs developed a prototype frequency shifter for feedback control of public address systems.  The prototype was analogue, using frequency modulation, but the commercial versions that followed were digital.  (See my entry on the Manfred Shroeder Frequency Shifter and the chance meeting in the PRR Cincinnati Limited eastbound at Horseshoe Curve at www.proaudioencyclopedia.com.)   Then Lexicon and Industrial Research Products both introduced competitive audio delay units to match amplified with live sound in sound reinfrcement systems in 1971, first applied in Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theater and Manhattan's St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue (the latter landmark sound system still in operation with its KLH 6.5 pew-back loudspeakers after 49 years).  Pretty sure royalties to AT&T were involved.  Then came CDs, with Philips and Deutsche Grammerphone taking the lead in using digital technology and applying it to what is essentially a micro version of the original Edison hill-and-dale mechanical recording and playback, but with optical playback for zero wear.  At the same time, digital control consoles, equalizers, even power amplifiers to the output stage.

From my entry on the audio encyclopedia website;  the referenced JASAarticle on the figure regards the Tanglewood Shed acoustics, not the frequency shifter.

[Flintlock76]

Very interesting David, thanks!  Quite an education there!

[Overmod]

daveklepper

With the PRR (and I love their power anyway, including K4s) having possibly the least musical steam locomotive whistles, which railroad had the most musical?

Oh, the irony: probably the most 'musical' of modern whistles were the ones applied to Cotton Belt 4-8-4s, proudly built 'at home' to keep their people at work.  As a crowning touch for that pride the whistles were built and tuned by organ builders.

You would never know this from 819, unfortunately, which now has one of the most godawful cacaphony generators out there, far worse than anything KCS or Berkshire Partners dreamed up with diesel horns to scare the unwary.  This came about, apparently, entirely by butchery: worse yet no one apparently knows the original dimensions or fabrication details so fixing the thing won't be easy.

My personal favorite is the whistle put on Kiefer's great swan song the A-2-A Berkshire.  I do not know how this might have technically differed from other contemporary "NYC" whistle practice but the chord was beautiful and the quilling could be a thing of beauty.

There was musical knowledge and craftsmanship in the arrangement on the early Lackawanna Poconos, too... but it was tuned air horns, not a whistle, and as expected it sounds more like an Eldorado than a locomotive.

Frankly I wouldn't give you a nickel for any hooter or steamboat whistle, evocative in a Tallulah sort of way though the latter may be, when a good chime whistle could have been provided instead.  The chime will arrest attention from farther away, too.

Something that I don't think was ever worked out was blowing whistles on higher boiler pressure.  The Nathan long-bells in particular were dismal on superheated steam or high pressure, and while there were some things you were supposed to be able to do with them to fix the issues, I don't think I ever heard an example that demonstrated one that worked right.

[daveklepper]

I erred in omissions:  "Talkies" did not depend solely on AT&T and its subdiaries.   RCA made important contributions, including the perfecting of optical the sound tracks at the sides of 35mm film.  They also developed a full line of theater sound amplification equipment, competing with the Western Electruc equipment tha5 later was manufactures and marketed by Altec Lansing, with James B. Lansing then starting a third competitior.  And Professor Vern Knudson's pioneering work on acoustically treating "sound stages" certainly was necessary for intelligible dialogue.

[Sunnyland]

I do not really like them either, have a friend who helped restore some of those engines and he said the "elephant ears" are hard to keep clean.  I like the classic lines of #4960 and #1522. 

[MJ4562]

Elephant Ears are ugly and don't belong on American locomotives.  Same with streamlining.  The only streamlined locos I could tolerate were the GS4 in Daylight colors. 

The Elesco heaters and all the pipiing are works of mechanical art. 

[SHKarlson]

Then your winner of the Rolling Mud Fence Award must be those Boston and Maine Limas that added small smoke deflectors alongside the Coffin feedwater heaters!

[SHKarlson]

Gosh, this has become an eclectic thread branching into music and German fiction!

As far as smoke deflectors, let me make the case for Boston and Maine's Lima Pacifics, which in their initial incarnation have a vaguely Gallic look about them, with those elephant ears, slanted front cabs, the cladding streamlining the upper works, and then the red trim and the speed lettering.

That's likely to provoke some disapproval among some of the commenters.  I'm building a model of one of them in O Scale, and those who disapprove at my railroad are invited to contemplate the implications of the even bigger kettle you see in my avatar!

[Overmod]

SHKarlson

... those Boston and Maine Limas that added small smoke deflectors alongside the Coffin feedwater heaters!

For those not in the know, he means these:

Now i have always had a soft spot for these engines with Coffin heaters (with the usual little 'frisson' of that name evoking the somewhat Reaper-like appearance) and those neat little tabs only improve the effect.

For true homeliness you need to go over to the B&A, which had some engines with smokebox fronts that, charitably, look as though designed by someone on a bad mescaline trip.

Note that keeping the exhaust-steam exchanger entirely outside the smokebox made the arrangement too long to be 'saved' by putting the smokebox-door 'face' forward of it.  Some engines with Coffins did, in fact, do that (I believe NYC, for example, had some) and look more "normal".

In my opinion the deflectors on Niagaras are necessary; the early versions look like the Little Rascals built a locomotive by laying a water heater on a wagon.  The same can be said for the P&LE A-2-As (the initial design from 1946 shows them).  

 

[MMLDelete]

I don't mind those little ears on the B&M engine. That's a pretty sharp loco, IMO. A brute, too. Purposeful.

The deflectors don't dominate the front end, like on many engines.

[ShroomZed]

It really depends on the proportions of the locomotive if I like the addition or not. My aesthetic senses of steam locomotives are tied quite closely to German and South African locomotives so I do quite like the look of large elephant ear blinkers on certain locomotives, it usually adds to their formidable appearance. 

It's weird but I think most American locomotives actually don't look much better with blinkers. The NYC L4s definitely have a more complete appearance with them, but I'd have to think of some other examples. 

[Paul Milenkovic]

daveklepper

The money came from Holywood up to agout 1960.  The work, however, was done at Bell Labs, AT&T in genral, and its manufacturing arm, Western Electric. Exponential horn drivers, compression drivers, large bass horn enclosures with 15 and 18-inch "woofers," all these came from AT&T and its subsidiaries.  After 1960, with its development of the transistor, the switch to digital sound was actually started in France as early as 1938 with "Pulse-code Modulation" as an alternative to Amplitude Modulation and Frequency Modulation.  In 1955, Bell Labs began working on digital audio to increase capacity of radio and wire links.  Frequency modulation already increased the capacity of a single link to well over a hundred messages, but ditital could raise it to ten thousand.

In 1960 Bell Labs developed a prototype frequency shifter for feedback control of public address systems.  The prototype was analogue, using frequency modulation, but the commercial versions that followed were digital.  (See my entry on the Manfred Shroeder Frequency Shifter and the chance meeting in the PRR Cincinnati Limited eastbound at Horseshoe Curve at www.proaudioencyclopedia.com.)   Then Lexicon and Industrial Research Products both introduced competitive audio delay units to match amplified with live sound in sound reinfrcement systems in 1971, first applied in Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theater and Manhattan's St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue (the latter landmark sound system still in operation with its KLH 6.5 pew-back loudspeakers after 49 years).  Pretty sure royalties to AT&T were involved.  Then came CDs, with Philips and Deutsche Grammerphone taking the lead in using digital technology and applying it to what is essentially a micro version of the original Edison hill-and-dale mechanical recording and playback, but with optical playback for zero wear.  At the same time, digital control consoles, equalizers, even power amplifiers to the output stage.

From my entry on the audio encyclopedia website;  the referenced JASAarticle on the figure regards the Tanglewood Shed acoustics, not the frequency shifter.

 

 

There is a system to suppress microphone feedback?

You mean to tell me, no more "Is this mic on?" followed by "weeeescreeeeeeech!"

[Sara T]

Hello everybody

I'm new in this forum, I am interested in steam locomotives from the aesthetic aspects and the vivid atmosphere they can create. A lot different from the diesel or electric locomotives that are just simply utilitarian tools to transport trains.
Yes, I think smoke deflectors are quite suited to complete a road running loco and give it some aspects of speed and dynamics.
Even the big American steam locomotives seen from a viewpoint sideways behind have a front end that lacks the forward look, the boiler is set back against the lower part and cylinders. With the last models when the large smoke deflectors were put on, the 'elephant ears', this was corrected and these locos look much better from this viewpoint.
On European steam locos with their smaller boilers or more narrow diameter barrels, this situation is even sharper and they do need smoke deflectors.
A special form of these sheets are the German ones that are mounted directly to the boiler sides and do not have the down reaching part. They were used on all DB and DR designs of locos since the 1950s and make an integral part of the boiler front end.
In my view, they look more speed emphasizing and dynamic than the older types of 'elephant ears'. the second have just a vertical front profile, the former leave the front of the locomotive more open and with several visual aspects: cylinders, frames, smokebox front are more visible and play a part in the arrangement of shaping the external character.
As you can see on this photo of DB 012 054 from BW Rheine, seen in Münster in Summer 1973, southern end of the line for steam at that time.

 (there should be a photo of 012 054. I have tried to put it up but I can't.

Sorry.)

 

 

 

I have slightly smoothened the shades and lines because the Rheine locos were quite battered altogether. 012 054 was one of the better ones, was shelved autumn that year and put out of service. If this was because of some defect or not I have no information. The 012 were oilfired three cylinder 4-6-2s and were not fully extended on the 'Emsland line' Münster - Rheine - Lingen - Emden - Nordeich-Mole because the line speed was limited to 110 km/h, 70 mph. Some trains were composed of up to 14 long express cars however, among them the afternoon up D 735 was famed with the steam friends and remained on the schedules of the 012s until the final withdrawal of the last six locos in May 1975.

Sara  05003

 

 

[Sara T]

Lithonia Operator

This morphed from smoke deflectors to music.

It's only a matter of time until we get to classic warplanes strafing concerts.

 

Ha-ha-ha, chucks, yes.

But ok, why not.

Only, I hope we can then come to some peace tech again ...?

Racing cars? Bicycles?

No: why not model railways?

Ah - there is a special magazine and forum for that.

But there is one for war planes, too.

Well, 05003 finally went to serve in March 1945 - but then the whole madness

was all over!

Sara  05003

[Juniatha]

Hi, buddies

 

I noticed that several people say they don't like smoke wings - but then again with engine classes that had them from the beginning, the same people say the engine looks good with them.

 

That sounds like they largely appreciate all engines the way they were built in the beginning and in no improved form: those without smoke wings are better without and those with smoke wings are better with them.

 

This is not a genuine reflection of the aesthetic value of smoke wings but just a preference for the regular appearance of the engine.

Sorry ...

 

As for European engines with their smaller boiler diameter, I believe smoke deflectors are a sine qua non with road engines. In the aftermath of Unification, we Western steam fans had to experience quite an abounding number of Decapods downgraded to 'heating plants' that had their Witte wing torn off. They all looked very poor and lacking. There was a strong feeling of want about them, they were no complete and competent locomotives anymore, they were ghastly remnants of something of no importance, to be thrown away any time.

 

No one looked ok in that shorn state. In certain instances it was horrifying, the extent of neglect was incredible - gruesome! 

 

Although there were a few exeptions, in general the American big steam also went that way at the end with all the encrustations, grime, dirt, and rust about them. One could see they were willingly and purposely run down so they could no longer stand up against the adored and idolized diesel, the need for change from steam to diesel was self-created in this way.

 

Juniatha

[Juniatha]

 

Quote: "Gosh, this has become an eclectic thread branching into music and German fiction!"

Ok, you talk about music that evokes scenes of railroading to you. Well, let's take it one notch further: I'm talking of music that is like it comes from railroading - and what is the very core of railroading, the very center, where the essence of railroading focusses?
Right: the locomotive -
the steam locomotive, that is!
Many an Old Timer has told of the uncanny bond between the engine and him, that he felt what she was doing, if she was fine or desperately fighting to get the job done, how she reacted to what he gave her, it was like he could talk to her when she lost her temper in a wild spin, keep her calm and concentrated when the going got tough. And at a certain point of time, it was not only him talking to her but he would swear she talked to him - they had become a team working together on their time on the road, over the day, through the night - as the schedules asked it.
Now, I have a scene here of a driver and a 44 class three-cylinder Decapod: He had somehow managed to have that same 44 all the time, and finally, no one else had her - they had become a sworn-in team. This partly did happen, it was called planlok system, consisting of two or three crews for an engine, mostly though. Let's pass this detail and assume that guy had this one 44 just for him every day. They got the trains moving like it couldn't be any smoother, he got her to assault the incline, go through the curves, pass the small stations like it was nothing and it always was her and no other.
Then, one day he disappeared, leaving her idle at first. He had gone for further education to drive diesel. She had to feel other hands at the throttle, hands that didn't feel anything, didn't care, while she only yearned of that one hand - his! But he was gone.
Then finally, much later, he came back, wanted back his seat - but she had changed, she wasn't the same anymore, she had become just one other 44 and didn't welcome him back anymore - too much time had passed since those bright days.
To me, this is what Allison Moyet sings about (and wasn't she a formidable 44 at that time?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG5zDk82Wd0

All cried out
There is the vibrating rhythm, as the 44 moved, shoved, rolled ...
... I'm crazy you think? Well, I don't envy your rationalism.
I can be 100% rational when I want to - but I allow myself some dreaming, too at times.

Juniatha

 

[Juniatha]

Sara,

both your pictures are missing -

mind putting them up again?

=J=

[SD70Dude]

There is a separate thread for warbirds vs trains (you're welcome).

Apparently some of the North American smoke deflector designs didn't work out as intended, resulting in their removal.  I've read of at least one case where crews believed that a streamlined casing which was supposed to deflect smoke actually resulted in MORE of it ending up in their faces. 

It wasn't just the aging steam power that ended up forlorn and filthy, as many North American railroads slipped closer and closer to bankruptcy from the 1950s onward those shiny new diesels saw the washrack less and less often.

The white staining on the front truck is traction sand:

https://railpictures.net/photo/462144/

Others diesels fell out of favour even sooner:

https://railpictures.net/photo/644135/

[Juniatha]

Hi SD70

 

Ok, I see by your participant's name you might feel differently - but my blood runs cold in view of a beaten diesel, sorry, man.

Yes, they slipped into bankruptcy - lots could be said about that, let's leave it at that!

Smoke deflectors didn't always work out right: well, they should have made a few simple wind tunnel tests - thats all.

In the 1990s the Polish thought even the bending of the 'Witte' smoke wings was a waste of effort and put on these ugly flat sheet plates - and that on a 52 (then Ty-2 / 42) with a semi-cylindrical tender water tank! Disgusting!

But then again they had friendly steam crews - they let me drive that engine with the ugly smoke wings (Ty-2.87 as I remember), and the driver even let me test the short cut-offs: I went down to 10%, then he noted that the engine had virtually quieted out, no exhaust beat any longer, it just came out smoothly without a sound - yet the fire was good and running was absolutely as good as on the general 'smallest' 25 - 30 % - yet he 'corrected' that quickly.  I also drove the heftier 'bad brother of the 52', the 42 (then Ty-3 / 43) and the Ol-49 - also down to 15 %, the driver chatted with the fireman, didn't care as long as we were proceeding on time, which we did. The brakes could be finely adjusted and I braked on spot with a minimum of modulating brake pressure ... Those were happy days 1990 / 91 / 92 - even though my hair really suffered ...

Juniatha

 

[Flintlock76]

SD70Dude

It wasn't just the aging steam power that ended up forlorn and filthy, as many North American railroads slipped closer and closer to bankruptcy from the 1950s onward those shiny new diesels saw the washrack less and less often.

'Dude, those pictures you linked immediately reminded me of a line Walter Lord wrote, so powerful it's stuck with me to this day.  About the end of an era:

"The railroads sagged into decrepitude like a Bowery bum."

Says it all, doesn't it?

[Flintlock76]

Juniatha

But then again they had friendly steam crews - they let me drive that engine

Some people have all the luck!  

Oh well, this is why I don't dwell on the things I haven't done, but remember fondly the things I have  done.  Why be greedy?

[Juniatha]

Quote "Oh well, this is why I don't dwell on the things I haven't done, but remember fondly the things I have  done.  Why be greedy?"

That's a good word! I like it, really think that's how the world should be.

Thank you, W.. uhm Fireflint, uhm Flintlock

Juniatha